Google Keep’s joining the ranks of system apps considered essential

Google Keep is being upgraded to a system app on Android 16 devices, joining the ranks of other Android apps that provide essential services like calling and messaging, reports Android Police.

Google’s free note-taking app appears as a system app on the latest Android 16 beta, Android 16 Developer Preview 2. Anyone upgrading to this OS version will no longer be able to uninstall the app unless they have root access. However, anyone still using Android 15 or older can easily uninstall it via normal means, as Google Keep is not a system app on those versions.

The news comes as a surprise. Google integrated Keep with its Tasks feature in April, but otherwise Google mostly has ignored its note-taking app over the years. Yet all of a sudden, it’s apparently considered a core feature vital to Android’s operating system like Google’s Phone, Contacts, and Google Play Store apps.

Google has yet to explain the change, but this suggests the company could be planning on upgrading Google Keep with more powerful features so it’ll play a more central role in Android 16. It’s possible Google could be planning on integrating it with other core Android features, for example.